1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to enclosures for showers, tubs or the like.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Normally, sliding door type enclosures used for shower and bathing facilities are produced with suspended doors which slide on a top rail. A bottom rail is mounted on the tub or floor of the enclosed area and contains guide rails for maintaining the doors in vertical orientation, laterally spaced from each other. Such a configuration is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,188,699, issued June 15, 1965 to Walters; U.S. Pat. No. 3,359,573, issued Dec. 26, 1967 to Casebolt; and again in U.S. Pat. No. 3,074,077, issued Jan. 22, 1963 to Taubman. This type of guide rail system is plagued with the deficiency that cleaning of the lower guide rails is virtually impossible with the doors in place and even difficult with the doors removed.
Other type guide systems have been suggested in order to cure this deficiency. Included among these is the system shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,265, issued May 23, 1978 to Baus, which shows a partition wall for wet chambers wherein the lower guide rail structure is produced in a stepped fashion. The door bottoms are held in alignment with the steps by use of permanent magnets. Such a system is expensive to manufacture and inconvenient to use.